Why Employee Insight Matters

It’s no secret that to flourish, companies must know their customers. They must know what turns them on, so to speak, and what they’re looking for. But here’s another element that’s crucial to your organization’s bottom line: employee satisfaction. And that’s where employee insight comes into play. You want to learn about and analyze what drives employee satisfaction then adjust where necessary. It’s vital that you do.

Read on for more about why employee insight matters.

What is Employee Insight?

Most companies “get” that engaged motivated employees generate satisfied customers. They regularly go beyond what’s expected to assist customers, which naturally boosts the corporate brand – as well as profits.

To that end, organizations often rely on employee insight, which in general is basically a way to remain atop of employee attitudes and perspectives.

Why is Employee Insight Important?

As we say, employee insight is key because it has been repeatedly shown to result in fatter profits, in addition to employee recruitment and retention. In between, you get increased productivity and heightened employee participation – all good.

What Kinds of Employee Insight Are There?

In terms of employee insights, organizations commonly rely on feedback to learn what their employees value, and that feedback is typically in the form of surveys – employee engagement, employee experience, and employee effectiveness.

Such questionnaires are time intensive and can be expensive, so be sure you take the results to heart and make any changes, including cultural, that will benefit the company.

Employee engagement surveys. These basically gauge how hyped employees are about working for you. It assesses how connected employees feel to your company, how likely they are to make the extra effort, and how likely they are to hang tight with you.  

Employee experience surveys. These surveys about peoples’ experiences at the company are conducted before a candidate is hired (you can find out how the prospect learned about the opening, what excites them most about the position, and what the recruitment process was like); soon after an employee is hired (questions such as whether the job so far aligns with expectations, and whether the employee understands how their role contributes to the organization’s goals); and when an employee is on the way out. The latter – exit surveys – will help you discover how your organization is perceived by an employee who is about to leave.

Employee effectiveness surveys. Such surveys permit employees to get personal and candid feedback from their colleagues. Info will not be used as part of performance evaluations but can give each employee an idea of where they’re excelling and where they can grow and improve.

Another way to gain employee insight is through free-text answers to open-ended questions. Using this method, which provides qualitative and quantitative data, employees are more liable to offer a layered opinion or broach a subject in which they’re especially interested. Depending on the questions, you could get feedback on topics such as leadership and operations. To find out more about leadership statistics, check here.

There’s also informal employee feedback, which derives from a culture that fosters an “open-door policy” when it comes to employee interaction. You can learn plenty from individuals if they feel like they can talk to their leaders about anything, any time.

Now that you know more about why employee insight matters, you can – and should — double down on efforts to discern how your employees feel, with an eye toward making adjustments that can improve your bottom line. It bears repeating: a satisfied workforce equals satisfied customers, which ultimately results in a successful brand, and one with increased profits.